Talk:Return of the Salt Princess/@comment-38048202-20190104153414
SPOILERS DOWN BELOW TO BOTH THIS GAME AND CURSERY! Read if you want some hahha This has to be one of their best works yet. The characters were more complex, and I was able to sympathize with them more. I remember tearing up when (SPOILER!) Serafina was dying, and also sympathizing with Brigid's confusion and despair on being so oblivious to everything. BTG definitely stepped up their game, both in storytelling and in veering into risky territories (mild cursing, Mercy's mildly brutal death), to name a few. In terms of complexity of theme, storytelling and depth, it's very similar to Cursery! Personally, Cursery stands as the best BTG game for me, and Return of the Salt Princess is in par with the former. As for the similarities, another user named most of them already, and I'd like to add some more to the list. The tragic romance of the Crooked Man/Blaise and Cheryl share similarities with the love triangle among Henryk, Wanda and Nuada. Both Henryk and Blaise share possessive streaks that greatly led to the failure of their relationship with their beloveds. Due to this, both Cheryl and Wanda ran off, which ultimately led to the relationship breaking off, with Cheryl dead and Wanda off to marry Nuada. Henryk's and Blaise's obsession to retrieve their love interests back led to the destruction of their kingdoms and lands, where the Grak Kingdom collapsed after the explosion instigated by Henryk in a desperate attempt to eliminate his enemies, and Blaise's own insanity corrupting the Silvery Coral Village until it sunk into the sands and remained forgotten. Henryk's and Blaise's possessiveness and eventual descent to obsession to reclaim their beloveds led to internal destruction, which in turn caused the external, tangible destruction of their environments. Henryk mirrors Blaise's tragic tale before becoming the Crooked Man. The next act and vital element of Blaise's motives - obsession - is paralleled by Nuada's obsession to retrieve his daughter Brigid. In the beginning of the game, Nuada was corrupted by the Braces of Compulsion (is that right?), which intensified his desire to see his daughter again. While this fades away much later on, he admits that his only motivation for living was to see his daughter again, before he (SPOILER) dies in saving Brigid. This obsession and desire is readily the same with the Crooked Man's motivation of finding the reincarnation of Cheryl. Similarly, he also sacrificed himself to save Renee/Cheryl. To simply put, Nuada's single-minded search for his daughter signifies the Crooked Man's pursuit of finding the reincarnation of Cheryl, both in the hopes of achieving a semblance of a family. Another strong similarity is the use of several notes and letters written by the characters. I know that this is common in BTG's games, but there is just something strikingly similar that both games share with the feel, ambience, and the gratuitous use of notes, manuscripts, scrolls, parchments and newspaper clippings, and the placement of these pop-ups to progressively unveil the story. Also, there were some references to Cursery present in the game. One glaring reference is the heterochromatic cat in the boat, who is UNDOUBTEDLY Parn. BTG loves leaving references to future projects in their games. As what has happened in The Last Cinderella, Cursery was referenced as a poem. Could the cat sculpture found in the game stand as a reference to a future Cursery installment? Last October 16, 2018, the BTG website wrote a blog revisiting the game, and left with a hopeful, yet ambiguous, note that "The legend of Cursery Rhymes shall continue in other forms.*" The indication of a future installment is STRONG, and I'm really hoping that they will officially turn Cursery into a series! Sorry for the huge text block. I really loved Dark Parables: Return of the Salt Princess, almost as much as Cursery: The Crooked Man and the Crooked Cat, and I overjoyed to see how the former is just as complex and immersive as the Cursery is. *The blog I was talking about is here: http://blueteagames.com/there-once-was-a-crooked-man/